There is no doubt that cracker's always tend to be one step ahead of software creators, no matter how tough the software protection is they always come up with a method to bypass it sooner or later, But, Adobe seems to be very unlucky with their CS4 product release, first it was the Photoshop CS4 leak and now Adobe Creative Suite 4 got cracked and keygened within three days of its initial release, massive sized trial version of Adobe CS4 suite with crack patches made their way on torrent portals and file-sharing websites within days after release.

Adobe CS4 makes use of a license activation system to make Keygens and shared serial-number obsolete by blacklisting them via a central activation server, Surprisingly, smart crackers defeated the whole CS4 activation system using a simple trick, blocking access to the activation server using Windows or MAC HOSTS file.

After generating the key using the keygen, users simply need to block access to Adobe Activation servers using their firewalls or Windows HOSTS file, effectively disabling the CS4 licensing system from verifying the registration serial-key.

UPDATE # 1 : My web-hosting and domain service provider have received an copyright abuse complaint for this news post which actually does not contain anything illegal, we do not support piracy in anyway and therefore I am appending our standard caution notice for such post.

CAUTION: Downloading and using any leaked build or any hack/crack is not only illegal and a crime punishable by law, but also pose great security risks and should be avoided. The information posted here is for news purpose only and any illegal links posted in comments will be deleted.

A little FYI, we dont care if you crack our products. We make our money off of Organizations. We could make it impossible for you to use them, but then thats giving a giant advantage to our competitors. Thanks for calling the developers idiots instead of tanking them for all of their effort in such awesome softwares!

If people on this website do not appreciate your product, I do. You guyz at Adobe did a wonderful job. I am trying to design my website when I came across your trial product, and I fell in love with it , right away. However, I would still support the hacking, though not cracking, of any private software because they are too expensive. People like me are really poor and would consider the hacking of your product to be a honor and an advantage. So, good job. Try to learn from the holes found and make it stronger, and I hope that hackers would at the same time be able to hack those products next time (to make it more fun =D. lol.)

I know that I am a person who also has to search everywhere to find programs to use because of the prices on the shelves and so forth and can understand when another uses the same tecniques I do to obtain the software and that it is wrong of us to do so, given the regard that not all people have the funds to buy said products. But I do agree with you, Adobe's software is one of the leading software brands in designing and development of graphics and so forth and I give them a 10/10 for that. I enjoy creating and designing things such as websites and so forth and Adobe has done an excellent job in creating such software. 1 000 000 thumbs up to Adobe!!!!

I found and downloaded/installed the CS3 Master Collection and the install worked flawlessly! The file included a text file with several serials that I put in at the start of install. I was never asked for an activation and it has never tried to activate. I've checked my hosts file and it was untouched except for one non-related entry. My question, should I even worry about adding the activation.*****.com to my host file or leave well enough alone? As long as everything is working fine do I need to worry about it? I always check my task manager and kill the FNPlicensingservice when it pops up (usually at initial start up and every time I run one of the Adobe programs) and I never use any of the programs while I am online - always disable the internet every time I use any of them, just in case.

Would you bother? Thanks for any info.

*NOTE: No - I DO NOT have the list of serials anymore, so don't ask me, people! If you want to download any programs, I suggest you look online for the torrent sites - start with the letter "H". That's all I'm going to say on that matter, too. My momma didn't raise no fool!"*

First, the hosts files works the same way on the Mac. And on both systems, is has a lot of very good uses. I personally use it to redirect urls to localhost so I can do host header detection in IIS. It's poorly designed activation scheme created by adobe that's the issue.

Separate problem. I was able to load and install on xp computer. My visat laptop gets :operation failed" during certain portions of install. So I Know the programs works but what is blocking on my vista computer.

Very smart! I love it! Adobe could easily solve issues like this just by lowering their prices so that individual users could actually afford to buy their products! If it cost $500 to purchase the Design Premium Suite, instead of $1700, or $99-199 to upgrade instead of $599-799 then people wouldn't need to try to get around the system. Thanks your help from this cash challenged user!

In order to edit and save the Hosts file go to \start\All Programs\Accessories and right click on notepad and select run as a Administrator open \Windows\System32\Drivers\ETC\Hosts edit the file then you can save it.

i tried editing the host file, the one you refer to says it is a sample but i edited it neways, i reinstalled cs4 with the key you posted (got a green check) it installed and when i triied to use cs4 i got licensing has expired again

I downloaded the trial version of PS C4 about a month ago. I followed the above instructions for my dell and tried adding the '-- REMOVED --' line, but it will not let me save the notepad file. It tells me the following: "Cannot create the C:\Windows\Systems32\drivers\etc\host file. Make sure the path and file name are correct."

Also, when I enter the serial no. it will not accept it.

I am not sure if it has to do w/ the fact that I saved PS in an external drive and not directly on my computer.

I have activated photoshop and it still works, but the trial has expired for the others like dreamweaver and flash, it still asks for the serial number but CAN ANYONE TELL ME THE SERIAL NUMBERS??? Please, it's driving me mad!

I followed these instructions, however i downloaded Photoshop CS4 directly from Adobe. When you initially start CS4 its going to ask if you want to do a trial version or if you have a serial number to activate. enter this serial number and I hit enter. It notified me that photoshop was going to contact the adobe servers to verify the serial #. I unplugged the ethernet cable and hit enter. It still worked!

Permalink Submitted by I support Crack (not verified) on Sat, 07/24/2010 - 20:27

Thanks Bro. This works!

Previously, I can't use my Adobe CS4 while internet is ON as it will update to the adobe server and I will receive a message like license key is invalid. The next time I opened my CS4 it will prompted me a pop up window for activation.

And now, it rocks! I have my internet connection ON and I no longer received the invalid license key notification.

I bought and paid for a legal copy of Ps. I've been on the line with Adobe and they're literally no help. When I purchased this it was on an XP machine. After a couple of years it died. When I tried to put it on my new Win7 64 machine it says it's not a valid. As I read your info it is just not clear what I should try in the local host area. This is what is there now:
127.0.0.1 Local Host
127.0.0.1 activate.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 practivate.adobe.com
I've gone the www.blockdomainname.com route, but so far nothing I've done works. Do you have any suggestions?

I got a pop-up error message saying to reinstall or call ADOBe for assistance, or something like that. I restart win7 and Dreamweaver won't run. I can see it's process still running in the TASK window, but it won't run.

So I uninstalled all adobe, deleted DIRs, ran CCleaner and even did some regedit cleanup manually. I reinstalled the whole macromediz CS3 package, ran the key gxnerator, and finished the install.

If you did not receive any errors during installation, then perform these steps in the order given.

1. For an incomplete installation, follow the steps in knowledge-base document kb401401 (Windows) or kb402151 (Mac OS).
If you received errors during installation, and you've never been able to open your CS3 application, then the installation is incomplete. Please follow the steps in Technote kb401401 (Windows) or Technote kb402151 (Mac OS).

2. Move or delete the cache.db file.
Move the cache.db file from the following locations, onto the desktop or another folder. You can delete this file, but if you do, you'll need to enter your serial number the next time you open your application.

On Windows XP and Windows Vista, the cache.db file is located in Program FilesCommon FilesAdobeAdobe PCDcache
On Mac OS X, the cache.db file is located in Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PCD/cache
Try to open your Adobe application.

I installed cs4 on multiple machines at different dates. Now I am getting calls, that they have all expired. I put the date back and it seems to work again. But, I am thinking there is a Jan 20th bomb on all this. I was running little snitch and blocked the etc/hosts files too. Anyone want to look into this?

If you get "License Expired" message while starting one of previously cured CS4 Products, just replace amtlib.dll once more (with the cured one) in that product folder and don't forget to add appropriate servers in your "hosts" file. Any questions - Google Knows.

P.S. Some web packages, like TopServer or StpServer may discard your changes in the hosts file, while adding or deleting virtual hosts. Make sure to restore those changes befor starting Adobe

I've been doing everything I read about on this site, including these instructions, and it's not working. I have the edited hosts file, set date back, opened photoshop, deactivated, opened again and entered new serial, set date back to today.

For entering a new serial I've been entering one of several from a list of 11 from code tempest. I wouldn't expect any of the numbers would make a difference since with a properly edited hosts file this should solve any registration problem.

I have heard on the grape-vine, that the host file does successfully work at stopping it calling home to activate, but that CS4 has a timer built in, so that if it hasnt called home successfully before a certain time, it will stop anyway.
Has anyone else heard of this?

Just go into Clock and tick off "Set time & date automatically" and then set the date back - worked for me but is only a temporary fix (means that iCal, Things and other calendar related apps are useless)

One day Adobe M$ et al will realise it is far better to produce and sell software at a reasonable price than to continually rip off people that cannot really afford their overpriced apps. such as research students.

Thank God our universities give the knowledge to us to be able to reverse engineer and make these apps. FREELY available to the people that REALLY need them.

Very best wishes to the hackers and crackers, you are a fine example to us all.

I added all the lines on the HOSTS file and clicked on save. It's asking me what to name the file and what extension to use. The extension available was ".txt" and "All Files" What am I supposed to do?? I'm on Windows 7

I just installed the cs4 cretive master suite for mac. Can anyone baby step me through how to get around the key problem? I tried using the firewall, but it hasnt worked and I dont speak enough computer to know my way around the terminal. PLEASE HELP!

One of the things that I found myself getting into the habit of doing is opening Acrobat, going to the Help file and clicking the "Check for Updates" link. After it searches, I delete anything that shows up then click the Preferences button and remove the Automatically Check for Updates feature. I also remove all the check marks in the box below, just because I'm paranoid... :) I'm posting this from memory but it should make sense once you look at it.

I can not seem to get it to work on the Mac
It is clearly dependent on the date
as I can easily set back the date on my computer and it will open
but is there a long term fix (I have already re installed and deleted the db cache ect...)
any help would be greatly appreciated.

- set the clock back,
- plug in the blocked IP addresses into terminal
- clear the cache
- deactivate in the program itself
- re-start the program
- plug in your serial
- set-back the time to normal
- whola! FIXED.

- set the clock back,
- plug in the blocked IP addresses into terminal
- clear the cache
- deactivate in the program itself
- re-start the program
- plug in your serial
- set-back the time to normal
- THANKS!!! :-)

To prior poster -- reboot (you are on 10.4 which means all versions starting with 10.4). For everyone, here is how this fix works:

The lines like this one: "127.0.0.1 activate.adobe.com" are instructions to your computer to tell it that the server at activate.adobe.com is now located at internet location 127.0.0.1. The long list represents all the activation servers and this list points them all to this special address.

What's special about 127.0.0.1? It is called the "loopback" address and means "my own machine": using this address basically tricks the software into trying to activate the applications by communicating with your own computer instead of the proper location of the adobe activation servers. Since your own computer won't respond to this request (it's not an activation server), the software assumes that the activation server is temporarily offline so it allows you to use the software in the meanwhile (since it can't just lock you out when you have a valid serial just because the adobe server might be offline).

Now, the sudo line to -flushcache tells OS X 10.5 and higher to flush out any cached knowledge it has of the adobe server addresses, since entries in the cache could be used before the new 127.0.0.1 entries. By clearing the cache, you 'force' the Mac to use the new address. However OS X 10.4.x and lower do not have a quick command to clear the dns cache, but rebooting does the trick as well.

Finally, the CS4 software does require that the activation server EVENTUALLY be reachable after a certain amount of time. This is why you eventually expire. So, at this point, you need to deactivate. This is easy: roll back the time so that the application does start, choose deactivate (and choose the option to remove the serial number completely from the computer). Now you are back to a fresh install. Move the time forward to current time, restart the software, and re-enter the key. Now the process starts all over again.

Apparently the old serial has a trigger to stop the CS4 work starting the day jan/20/2009, that's why if you set the system date back to 19/jan/2009 the applications work. But to get CS4 back to work normally is not necessary to back the system date, everything that needs to be done is:

1. delete the file cache.db (mac - Library / Application Support / Adobe / Adobe PCD / cache and windows - C: \ Program Files \ Common Files \ Adobe \ Adobe PCD \ cache). This will eliminate the serial already used by CS4
2. empty the trash (just in case)
3. open one of the applications (eg photoshop)
4. install a serial later when the application ask
5. you are ready to go (at least until the date of the trigger of this new serial)

found a serial that seems to work (works for me) but unfortunately it is for mac, but there are some in the posts 110 (mac) and 116 (windows) of the following Address:

I uninstalled cs4 master collection after I received the error "licence expired"; Now Im having a problem reinstalling software back on windows Vista system. Do you have any suggestions for reinstallation; what are the dependency CS4 files that I need to remove to do a fresh install?

It really is that easy. (Look at post above - THE SERIAL HAS A TRIGGER) Tried a few others and they didn't work. But deleting the file cache.db and then entering a new serial number does the trick.

Also, I do advise blocking the adobe servers, however you can also use Little Snitch if you are on a mac. http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html (I'm sure there must be something similar for windows. It will tell you when a program is trying to connect to anything. Then you have the choice to let it proceed or not.

Funny how the first poster seems to be insecure about being a windows user, claiming that the workaround was somehow exclusive to WINDOWS users. Mac uses a HOSTS file too and it's exactly the same workaround. In fact OSX has a full Unix core, which is arguably more solid than any "BSOD" operating system. Nice try though...

Funny how the first poster seems to be insecure about being a windows user, claiming that the workaround was somehow exclusive to WINDOWS users. Mac uses a HOSTS file too and it's exactly the same workaround.

OK so I panicked and kind of needed a fresh system anyway, so I figured I'd wiped my hard drive, installed a fresh system (MBP Mac OS 10.5) and tried installing the programs 1st thing, before I had even connected to the internet for the 1st time. Totally disconnected. Airport off, no ethernet. That should do it, right? Nope. Still got the "license expired" message. I was truly baffled then...what kind of evil trickery could be going on?? But now the date bomb on the serials makes sense.

I went ahead and rolled back to CS3, because I had to have the programs one way or another.

Now my question is: on a fresh system, what would be the proper course of action? Like this?:
Install as normal, then go through the steps:
- set the clock back,
- plug in the blocked IP addresses into terminal
- clear the cache
- deactivate in the program itself
- re-start the program
- plug in your serial
- set-back the time to normal
?
Would this need to be done for each program?

Would this just create another date bomb? I guess if it did I know the process for getting around it. Thank all that is good and holy I found this thread? I thought I was done for.

Rather than reverting all the way back to CS3, the quick fix is to simply roll back the date, launch CS4, then reset the date to current. I've been struggling trying to find a fix for CS4 which I rely on every day. The date fix takes 10 seconds, and works every time. So until I find a new Serial that has a new expiration date (or no date at all) I'll stick to this method... it seems the only sure fire way to go.

Where is the link to download this??? I've been looking for a WORKING keygen for CS4 for a while but I can't find one ANYWHERE...I have ones for all CS4 programs except Illustrator...which is upsetting because that's the program I need most. So PLEASe if anyone can tell me why the link to download this isn't here or if I'm just blind it would be GREATLY APPRECIATED. Thank you in advance. :)

If I block access to Adobe activation servers can I still get updates? I've only found a crack for PS CS4, but I can't find anything for After Effects besides the X-FORCE keygen that requires the "host" block.

Ive used the host crack for windows and all the adobe aoftware works fine, but at the same time my internet isn't workin like it used to. Certain websites won't work for me and i can't get online on other networks that i use outside of home. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a solution? How do i delete the hosts crack file? I've tried to delete it already but it says
'cannot create the C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts file'
Make sure that the path and filename are correct.
Im using Vista, can anyone help?

On a MAC, i was still running into the same problem many others here were/are. After deactivating and entering the serial, it was still giving me "Expired" when i set the clock forward. It turns out it was TRULY my serial. I was entering a temp serial. I searched and downloaded a perm serial (after making sure my hosts are edited). This perm serial works perfectly. Now i don't have to reset the clock every time i use the apps.

So... to answer the question "Would this just create another date bomb?". The answer is YES... if you use a temp serial - not a perm serial.

I tried entering a key, but now if I try to open a program it says 'Licensing for this product has expired'. The only way I know how to deactivate a product is by opening the product and going through the help tab, but I can't get the program open to do that. Any suggestions on how to deactivate the product so I can try a different key??? Thanks

The solution is this. Change the calendar date of your computer for example make it 2008 then open AI. It will open at least in my computer it did. Then open registration and deactivate AI. After deactivation enter new serial number. That's it! Hope it will solve your problem

I have the CS4 master collection, and I've ran into all the similiar problems as mentioned. Here's what I did to fix it. On my laptop there is a switch, it turns off the outside world (wireless switch) and turns on the creative side while having adobe open, when it's time to restablish connection to the herd, Adobe gets closed and the switch, (wireless) gets turned back on.

Hi I am having the license expired problem with CS4 and I am afraid I don't understand this editing the host file and setting date back to reactivate it. I would soo appreciate it if someone could explain this to me super simply so I can use it again. Many thanks!!!!

I had the trial version installed. After the trial version had expired, I tried to install an Illustrator with a crack. But I can't install the program because no matter what serial number i introduce, it displays that the number is not valid and the process can no longer continue. What should i do?

I just spent an hour reading this forum and there are only two answers to any of the questions. both slightly technical for people who don't know there way around there computer. so hear is this for total begginers. Search google for "iserial". This is a program that will help you get all the serials for all the programs you need.
Now that you have Iserial you will also need a progam called "littlesnitch" . Now go to adobe.com and download the master suites trial. If you don't want to pay anything use a bit torrent site such as "mininova" to download the trial. I repeat the trial.
1. Now turn on littlesnitch,
2. intsall the trial as a trial
3. when installation is complete open any cs4 program and when prompted to either insert a key or continue as trial. Insert one of your keys.
4. evrything will work fine. in iserial you need to look under the creative suites to find what you need. Okay? okay.
5. Now all programs work fine except (in my case dreamweaver)
I get a message that says product has expired.
6. dial the date back refers to your actual computers date. change in system settings or in preferences.
7. follow instructions listed again and again in previous posts.

Having done the delete cache,clock rewind,new serial no.,deactivate, etc., i thought that i could accept doing this every 30 days for a fresh trial install but, the license expiry notice did become a pain.

Yesterday i tracked down the dll crack and used it to overwrite the original and BINGO! a full install. Happy bunnie am i.

Many thanks to all you guys for taking the time and trouble to post a geat workaround to the Adobe 20th january time bomb.

When i downloaded the adobe photoshop and flash cs4 from adobe.com, i clicked on the .exe file and it starts to extract. After that they pop up something that say,
"A problem occurred while extracting some files. Check available space on your computer and the write privileges on the destinatation folder."
my disk space has a free 20GB and i don see the problem here.. i off all firewalls and i changed my virus protection on ADBEPHSPCS4_LS1.exe to be allowed.

you are an id10t. TURN OFF YOUR VIRUS SCAN WHEN INSTALLING SOFTWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! COMPLETELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and what do you mean ALL firewalls ???? you have more than one firewall ? . whats the point ? you aren't any safer . Your hindered if you have more than one firewall... talk about a loss of packets :(

So I followed the instructions above for editing the file on a mac and inserting the IP addresses and almost all of the suite of software works great. But I keep getting a serial nag screen for adobe acrobat pro 9. I see there's lots of stuff removed on this site with regards to it. Does anyone have a working solution (with instructions?). *fingers crossed*

i'm not sure if this'll stop the full functionality of photoshop cs4, but i get prompt whenever i start it up stating:

'one or more files in the adobe application support folder, necessary for running photoshop, are missing. please run the photoshop installer and re-install photshop'

so far, i haven't ran into a problem while using it... i'm not sure if this prompt only affects a certain aspect of the program...

regardless, is anyone familiar with this prompt, and if there's a way around it without having to reinstall photoshop cs4?

thanks!

as for the acrobat 9 pro serial... i was able to find a working mac only serial through google... i'd post it, but it'd be taken off right away... just type 'acrobat 9 mac pro serial' and it'll be visible in the text preview of the 5th search result down...

Please help, i have followed all the steps above, atleast the illustrator stopped telling me to contact the sys admin, but it shuts down immediately after start up. I had previously cracked it and it was working well before it started showing me the error message to restart my machine and contact adobe.

After downloading CS4, I was bugged by the licience expiration pop up, when I read the blogs on this site, I got a remedy: I blocked adobe Cs4 apps with windows firewall then I reset time back to 2006, it worked sweet.

You'll find my Adobe CS4 Master Collection on THE PIRATE BAY. Just search for my user name, SHADEYMAN. For help installing etc. try reading the comments or register at THE PIRATE BAY and leave me a comment. I'll help you if I can...

What would we do without you and cracked Adobe! I have a problem - I can load and run adobe cs4 but it keeps asking for a serial and i cant use one i typed in earlier so i have to regenerate one using your keygen. i'm worried this is gonna run out. I've tried to edit the hosts file in vista but it won't let me save in either wordpad or notepad. Is this because it won't list it's file type? PLEASE HELP SHADEYMAN!!!

I found this video.
Then It was taken down by adobe but the same person put it up again.
With a different name. But it's the same video.
If you guys want the CS4 Master Collection without using torrents then this is for you. It shows how to keep it longer then the 30 days. But you need to read the description for instructions on how to get the CS4 Master Collection.
It totally worked for ME ! :D

I have an interesting problem that i can seem to bypass. I installed a pirated version of Cs4 Illustrator, Indesign and Photoshop, and the next day i got a call from my internet provider saying that i had downloaded adobe cs4 programs and that adobe traced it back to my IP address. So yeah that scared me a little, but i still need to use the programs for school. so i found out that flexnet has an anti-piracy initiative and can sense via internet activation who is using a pirated serial/crack/keygen. Which brings me to my question is there anyway to bypass the flexnet activation?

When i reinstalled it after my internet provider told me to delete it i used comodo firewall to block its access to the internet. in doing so it wont work due to lack of activation hence the problem.
Maybe im just not understanding the problem. I dont know.

the flexnet problems are two fold. the first - flexnet as far as im aware cannot yet be bypassed so it has to be allowed to run. using the hosts trick does work. i disabled all the other adobe services including the licensing one and thats when i get the flexnet error - the service must be allowed to run otherwise cs4 wont.

First off left me thank you all for a well put together forum I credit you all in helping me get this program. I would just like to know could you register your copy with ADOBE after completing this? I know it's a stupid question right? But no seriously it's not. It'll possibly cut out the hassle of having to go thru other measures when a new version comes out right?

By updating, you allow Adobevil to close the loopholes that all these methods use to get around licensing. If you want updates and proper support from Adobe, pony up the dough to buy the software.

Do NOT register with Adobe.

Unless you bought the software, NEVER EVER register it. This applies to all software, not just Adobe CS4. "Hi, I'm stealing your software, and here's my name and address so you can press charges... derp derp." Get a clue please.

Hello, uh yeah so I got the serial number for photoshop off of here but I also want to get the rest of master collection. Where can I get the serial numbers for the rest of master collection? Thank you for your help.

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